The Debian Distribution

The distribution of Linux as a commercial product is unique in the world of computer software in that most commercial Linux enterprises have not developed the systems that they market and sell.

Linux is freely-available and
freely-redistributable, so anyone who wishes to do so may obtain a
Linux distribution and resell it for profit without the need to
obtain licenses or pay royalties. The GNU General Public License,
which covers most system-level components and distributions of
Linux software, legally allows the occurrence of this “unusual”
practice. There is little chance that Linux could ever have reached
the level of quality that it has today without the freedom provided
to its users by the GNU General Public License. However, the
freedom that has made Linux possible also poses an interesting
problem to the legitimacy of it in the eyes of the large commercial
organizations in which it must gain acceptance to succeed. “What
exactly is `Linux'? Is a particular distribution `Linux'? What is
the difference between `Linux' and a `Linux distribution'? Why
hasn't this particular commercial vendor developed their own
distribution of Linux? Who else will stand behind and support the
Linux product if its vendor has not developed it? Is Linux for
hackers and hobbyists, or is it really a suitable replacement for
the commercial operating systems in use at `real-life' businesses?”

There has been much talk lately of consortiums, foundations
and official Linux organizations to ensure that the pursuit of
profit by commercial Linux distributors will never take precedence
over the quality of the products and services that they sell.
Others have suggested that the developers of the system-level
software or end-user distributions should undertake the
responsibility; after all, the developers spend a great deal of
time and energy constructing the software and systems for free and
are not likely to “sell out” for profit.

Whether we like it or not, Linux is rapidly becoming big
business and individuals are profiting from it. While it does not
bother me personally that people are making a living from
distributing and selling Linux, we, the developers and users of it,
must ensure that providing a first-class product remains the
highest priority of such businesses and that the future of the
operating system is never compromised in the battle for competitive
advantage and higher profit. Only by doing so can we assure the
future success of Linux in the commercial market, a success that
will benefit everyone.

Before proceeding further, an introduction is probably in
order. My name is Ian A. Murdock, and in mid-August of 1993 I began
working on what would eventually become the Debian Linux
distribution. Over the past four months and with the assistance and
support of hundreds of users around the world, Debian has evolved
into a commercial-quality system that will soon be able to compete
successfully alongside commercial UNIX implementations and non-UNIX
operating systems alike. By the time this article is published,
Debian will be available to the public via anonymous FTP.

We are also currently in the process of forming the Debian
Linux Association, an organization that will serve as the official
maintainer of Debian and the backbone and “watchdog” of commercial
distribution of it. The Free Software Foundation is involved and
will soon be distributing Debian on CD-ROM. There is much work to
be done yet, but just as much progress has already been made. The
future looks very bright, and by the beginning of March 1994 we
hope to be well on our way toward our goal of making Linux a viable
alternative to commercial operating systems.

My goal from the beginning has been to create a
commercial-quality distribution of the Linux operating system, a
product which has not existed until now but which is absolutely
essential to the success of Linux in the commercial market. In this
month's column I am including the Debian Linux Manifesto as a means
of introducing what I have done and what I plan to do with Debian
Linux. In future columns I will discuss such topics as the
commercial potential of Linux, the problems with the current
commercial distribution of the operating system and the progress of
the Debian Linux Association toward solving these problems.

Distributions are essential to the future of Linux.
Essentially, they eliminate the need for the user to locate,
download, compile, install and integrate a fairly large number of
essential tools to assemble a working Linux system. Instead, the
burden of system construction is placed on the distribution
creator, whose work can be shared with thousands of other users.
Almost all users of Linux will get their first taste of it through
a distribution, and most users will continue to use a distribution
for the sake of convenience even after they are familiar with the
operating system. Thus, distributions play a very important role
indeed.

Despite their obvious importance, distributions have
attracted little attention from developers. There is a simple
reason for this: they are neither easy nor glamorous to construct
and require a great deal of ongoing effort from the creator to keep
the distribution bug-free and up-to-date. It is one thing to put
together a system from scratch; it is quite another to ensure that
the system is easy for others to install, is installable and usable
under a wide variety of hardware configurations, contains software
that others will find useful, and is updated when the components
themselves are improved.

Many distributions have started out as fairly good systems,
but as time passes attention to maintaining the distribution
becomes a secondary concern. A case-in-point is the Softlanding
Linux System (better known as SLS). It is quite possibly the most
bug-ridden and badly maintained Linux distribution available;
unfortunately, it is also quite possibly the most popular. It is,
without question, the distribution that attracts the most attention
from the many commercial “distributors” of Linux that have surfaced
to capitalize on the growing popularity of the operating
system.

This is a bad combination indeed, as most people who obtain
Linux from these “distributors” receive a bug-ridden and badly
maintained Linux distribution. As if this wasn't bad enough, these
“distributors” have a disturbing tendency to misleadingly advertise
non-functional or extremely unstable “features” of their product.
Combine this with the fact that the buyers will, of course, expect
the product to live up to its advertisement and the fact that many
may believe it to be a commercial operating system as there is also
a tendency not to mention that Linux is free nor that it is
distributed under the GNU General Public License. To top it all
off, these “distributors” are actually making enough money from
their effort to justify buying larger advertisements in more
magazines; it is the classic example of unacceptable behavior being
rewarded by those who simply do not know any better. Clearly
something needs to be done to remedy the situation.

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